UPDATED NEWS: KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, SR., EX-MARINE

Exclusive: Cop in Fatal Shooting of Ex-Marine Kenneth Chamberlain ID’d, Sued in 2008 Racism Case

In a broadcast exclusive, we reveal the name of the police officer who allegedly killed 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain, the retired African-American Marine who was shot dead in his own home in White Plains, New York, in November after he inadvertently triggered his medical alert pendant. Documented in audio recordings, the White Plains police reportedly used a racial slur, burst through Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, then shot him dead. "The last time I actually really saw my father, other than the funeral, was at the hospital, with his eyes wide open, his tongue hanging out his mouth, and two bullet holes in his chest," said Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr. "And I’m staring at my father, wondering, 'What happened?'"

The alleged shooter, Officer Anthony Carelli, is due in court later this month in an unrelated 2008 police brutality case. He is accused of being the most brutal of a group of officers who allegedly beat two arrestees of Jordanian descent and called them "rag heads." We speak to Gus Dimopoulos, attorney for Jerry and Sal Hatter. "We allege that the police officers, while in the custody of the White Plains Police Department back at the station, you know, severely beat Jerry while being restrained by handcuffs. They hit him in the face with a nightstick, they kicked, they punched, they punched him, and then essentially charged him with a crime," Dimopoulos said.

Fatal shooting of ex-Marine by White Plains police must be explained

A routine ambulance call morphed into a senseless killing

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/shoot-head-article-1.1056240#ixzz1rBVRaYgD

Something went terribly, fatally wrong when police responded to the Winbrook Houses in White Plains on Nov. 19, and the facts in the death of Kenneth Chamberlain are long overdue.
The basic outline of the episode is horrendous.

Chamberlain, 68, was a Marine Corps veteran and former correction officer who had a medical-alert system in his apartment because he suffered from a serious heart condition.

He apparently had activated the apparatus unintentionally as he slept.

Unable to arouse him using a loudspeaker that was part of the system, the alert service called for medical assistance, which arrived in pre-dawn darkness, along with police.

Less than an hour later, Chamberlain was dead, shot twice by a cop who, the Daily News reveals, was previously named in a federal civil rights suit stemming from an alleged nightstick beating. He fired after the responders tried to stun Chamberlain into submission and shot beanbags at him.

Unexplained is why the cops forced their way into Chamberlain’s apartment after he told them through the door that he was okay.

Unexplained is why the officers escalated a mission of mercy into a violent confrontation in which, perhaps, Chamberlain resorted to wielding a knife.

Unexplained is why one of them pulled the trigger while facing a man who was so infirm he had trouble walking distances.

Unexplained is why Westchester Country District Attorney Janet DiFiore is only now, almost five months later, empaneling a grand jury.

The probe’s apparently slow pace is fueling doubts, and so is the poisonous factor of race. Chamberlain was black, and one of the responders was recorded as saying, “I don’t give a f--k, n----r, open the door.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/shoot-head-article-1.1056240#ixzz1rBXFIqbc

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/shoot-head-article-1.1056240#ixzz1rBWEeKlu

Sources identify White Plains cop Anthony Carelli as triggerman in fatal shooting of retired Marine

Exclusive: At center of controversial Nov. 19 shooting of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., cop also to go to trial in unrelated brutality and racism case

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sources-identify-white-plains-anthony-carelli-triggerman-fatal-shooting-retired-marine-article-1.1056394#ixzz1rBXjTKyf

The Daily News has cracked a tightly kept secret, revealing for the first time the identity of the cop who fatally shot a former Marine almost five months ago.

He is White Plains Officer Anthony Carelli.

In a shocking twist, The News has learned that Carelli, who killed retired Marine Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. on Nov. 19, is due in court later this month in a federal police brutality case.

Carelli is one of six cops accused in a $10 million civil suit brought by twin brothers who say he battered them during a disorderly-conduct arrest outside the Black Bear Saloon in downtown White Plains during Memorial Day weekend 2008.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sources-identify-white-plains-anthony-carelli-triggerman-fatal-shooting-retired-marine-article-1.1056394#ixzz1rBYEJV7Q

AP; Courtesy Kenneth Chamberlain Jr.

Clockwise from top left: David Chong, Janet DiFiore, Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. and Thomas Roach.

Jereis (Jerry) Hatter and Salameh (Sal) Hatter, 27, claim Carelli was the most brutal of the officers who beat and kicked them while they were handcuffed, calling them “rag heads.” Their parents are Jordanian immigrants.

The brothers say Carelli beat Jereis Hatter with a police baton, causing head and eye injuries, while he was handcuffed to a pole in the booking area of the police station.

“He hit me in my eye with a nightstick and then he kicked me in my nuts,” Jereis Hatter told The News on Wednesday. “He shouldn’t be a cop.”

All charges against the Hatter brothers were dismissed last August by a judge who complained that testimony about the boozy night in question resembled a “Quentin Tarantino script” because everyone had a different version of what happened.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sources-identify-white-plains-anthony-carelli-triggerman-fatal-shooting-retired-marine-article-1.1056394#ixzz1rBZOsXqw

New Book Says O.J. Simpson's Son Jason Killed Nicole Brown

Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/new-book-says-oj-simpsons-son-jason-killed-nicole-brown-201214#ixzz1r5CNxgvF

Credit: Issac Brekken-Pool/Getty Images

From the title of William Dear's new book O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It, one may think that O.J. Simpson has an ally. But Dear's finger is pointed right at Simpson's own son, Jason Simpson, who was 24 at the time that his dad was on trial for the murder of Nicole Simpson Brown and Ronald Goldman.
In the book, which is due to hit stores on Monday, Dear, a private investigator assigned to the 1994 case, details what he and his team of forensic experts have found over the past 17 years.

Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/new-book-says-oj-simpsons-son-jason-killed-nicole-brown-201214#ixzz1r5CthXJo

'Tremendous damage' as 2 twisters reportedly touch down in Dallas area

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Despite 2009 Deal, Affordable Housing Roils Westchester

Alan Zale for The New York Times

Low-cost homes under construction in Rye, N.Y.

WHITE PLAINS — When Westchester County agreed to a far-reaching affordable housing agreement in 2009, federal officials heralded a new era for desegregation in communities around the country.

“This is consistent with the president’s desire to see a fully integrated society,” said Ron Sims, then the deputy secretary with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Until now, we tended to lay dormant. This is historic, because we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire.” 

But rather than signaling a transformative moment, the settlement has led to an uncomfortable and often rancorous tug of war, complicated by politics and real estate prices in one of the nation’s wealthiest areas, where the residents include notables like Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. 

The result is raising questions about Westchester’s commitment to complying with the agreement and just what a “fully integrated society” might mean, cost and look like in a largely developed suburban county.

Westchester is ahead of schedule in building the 750 affordable residences required by the settlement, but there are complaints that rather than representing true economic and racial integration, many of the housing units are far from the heart of affluent white communities. Westchester and HUD remain at a testy impasse over the county’s responsibility to ensure that its towns and villages end exclusionary zoning practices.

FBI becomes involved in Trayvon Martin investigation 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Many Preschoolers Do Not Play Outdoors Daily

A study published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication reveals that approximately half of preschool-aged children are not being taken outside to play each day.

Clinicians are advised by the American Academy of Pediatrics to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, which includes encouraging children to play outdoors frequently. According to the researchers, children participate in physical activities by playing, and playing outdoors may be beneficial for mental health, vitamin D levels, motor development, vision, and cognition.

Researchers warn kids don't get enough outdoor playtime

Playing outside might be one of the fondest childhood memories for most adults, but researchers now say that  they're not carrying on the tradition for their kids.


According to a new study published in the April 2 Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, parents just aren't taking their kids, especially young girls, outdoors to participate in physical activities.

The study looked at 8,950 children and researchers asked their parents to report their child's outdoor playtime. Researchers discovered only 51 percent of children went outside to walk or play once a day with either parent.

Boys were also more likely to be taken outside than girls: Preschool girls were 16 percent less likely to be taken outdoors.

Overdiagnosis of Invasive Breast Cancer Due to Mammography Screening: Results From the Norwegian Screening Program

Is Your Facebook Password Like Your Mail, House Key, or Drug Test?

Report: FBI feared sexy spy was getting close to White House

Treasure of Golf’s Sad Past, Black Caddies Vanish in Era of Riches

AUGUSTA, Ga. — For decades, the black caddies at Augusta National Golf Club — required by the club’s rules and treasured for their nuanced knowledge of the course’s topography — stood as a striking symbol of the sport’s segregated state.

Augusta National/Getty Images

Arnold Palmer, center, and Ben Hogan, right, at Augusta, where black caddies were once required. 

“As long as I’m alive,” said Clifford Roberts, one of the club’s founders in 1933 and a longtime Masters chairman, “all the golfers will be white and all the caddies will be black.” 

In 1997, 20 years after Roberts’s death, Tiger Woods, with a white caddie, won the first of his four Masters championships, shattering the mirror that Roberts’s vision reflected. Woods, who has won 14 majors, changed the face of golf in more ways than one. Not only is the best golfer of this era not white, Woods’s success has helped pushed the black caddie to the brink of extinction.

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter

SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age. 

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

Obama: GOP plan 'a prescription for decline'

President Obama plans to blast the proposed Republican budget today as "a Trojan Horse" that is promoted as a deficit reduction plan, but is "really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country."

"By gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that's built to last -- education and training; research and development -- it's a prescription for decline," Obama plans to say, according to excerpts released by the White House.

First look at Whitney Houston in her final film Sparkle as much-awaited trailer is released

Viewers got a first glimpse of Whitney Houston's final film today.
NBC's Today show premiered a trailer for the much-awaited release of Sparkle, a remake of the 1976 original.

The film stars Houston, who passed away last month at the age of 48, as the mother of three girls who form a singing group and struggle with fame and drug addiction.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2124070/Sparkle-movie-trailer-First-look-Whitney-Houston-final-film.html#ixzz1qyBwblnn

Gunman kills 7, wounds 3 at California Christian college

(Reuters) - A gunman opened fire at a Christian college in California on Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding three after telling former classmates: "Get in line and I'm going to kill you all."
Police said the suspect, a 43-year-old Korean-American, surrendered at a Safeway grocery store several miles away from the scene at Oikos University in Oakland after the deadliest U.S. school shooting in five years.

He was named by police as One Goh, a former student at Oikos, which has links to the Korean-American Christian community. Police described the man as both a Korean national and a naturalized American citizen from Korea. They said they believed he used a handgun and acted alone.

12 killed in Moscow market fire

Twelve people have died after a fire tore through a Moscow market warehouse that was being used by migrant workers as temporary residence.

Unconfirmed news reports said the migrants came from the impoverished Central Asian nation of Tajikistan. Numerous Moscow markets employ cheap labourers from the region without giving them proper housing conditions or pay.

The blaze erupted early on Tuesday at a market on the southern outskirts of the city called Kachalovsky. Officials said it took two hours to put out.

Emergency workers described squalid living conditions in which the workers slept on hard cots that were stacked on top of each other in rows of four without any direct access to the outside.

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Arrest

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court’s conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs, but also public health and information about gang affiliations. 

“Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed,” Justice Kennedy wrote, adding that about 13 million people are admitted each year to the nation’s jails.

Investors Are Looking to Buy Homes by the Thousands

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — At least 20 times a day, Alan Hladik walks into a fixer-upper and tries to figure out if it is worth buying.

With home prices down more than a third from their peak and the market swamped with foreclosures, large investors are salivating at the opportunity to buy perhaps thousands of homes at deep discounts and fill them with tenants. Nobody has ever tried this on such a large scale, and critics worry these new investors could face big challenges managing large portfolios of dispersed rental houses. Typically, landlords tend to be individuals or small firms that own just a handful of homes. 

But the new investors believe the rental income can deliver returns well above those offered by Treasury securities or stock dividends. At the same time, economists say, they could help areas hardest hit by the housing crash reach a bottom of the market.

6 dead, 3 wounded in shooting at Christian college in Oakland

Six people were killed and three wounded Monday when a gunman opened fire at a small religious college in Oakland.

Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid, who represents the area, told The Times he was informed about the casualties by Oakland police officials, who plan a 2 p.m. news conference.

A school official said the alleged gunman had been a nursing student at the college.

Pastor Jong Kim, who founded Oikos University about 10 years ago, told the Oakland Tribune he was unsure if the alleged shooter had been expelled from the school or dropped out voluntarily. He said he heard about 30 gunshots while remaining in his office for safety.

Lucas Garcia, a teacher at the school, told KGO-TV he heard a half-dozen shots in the middle of a  lesson before someone yelled that a someone had a gun. Garcia said there are a little more than 100 students enrolled at the university, but not all were on campus at the time. He said the school teaches the Bible, nursing and English.

Medical pot school raid: 'They're going after industry leaders'

The executive chancellor of the Oakland medical marijuana university that was raided by federal agents Monday said she advised founder Richard Lee, whose home also was raided, to stay away.

The properties raided Monday included the university, a museum at 17th and Broadway--where Lee recently relocated his dispensary after his landlord received a warning letter from the U.S. attorney--and two other locations Lee has rented.

A raid also was being conducted on the home of a friend of Lee's, said Executive Chancellor Dale Sky Jones. Lee founded Oaksterdam as the state's first cannabis-industry training school.

Failed drug test could mean end to unemployment benefits

For South Carolina's unemployed, failing or refusing a drug test after a job offer could mean the end to that unemployment check. The SC House passed a bill that would allow employers to contact the SC Department of Employment and Workforce if a prospective employee fails or refuses a drug test.
The bill passed the House in late March by a vote of 70-24.

"You are not ready, able and available to be hired and go to work," Aiken County Representative Thomas Young, Jr. argued. Young, a Republican, co-authored the bill and argued on the floor that the standard for drawing unemployment benefits is being ready to go to work right away. "We shouldn't be paying unemployment benefits to someone that doesn't meet that definition," said Young.

"It's a little bit insulting to those who have lost their jobs for this body to suggest that they're unemployed because of drug use," Representative Joe Neal told the House. Neal brought up Governor Haley's accusations that half of job applicants at the Savannah River nuclear plant had failed drug tests, but SRS records showed that less than 1 percent had failed.

Democrats think Haley's misinformation led to the unemployment drug testing bill.

Senior citizens continue to bear burden of student loans

The burden of paying for college is wreaking havoc on the finances of an unexpected demographic: senior citizens.
New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent. As a result, consumer advocates say, it is not uncommon for Social Security checks to be garnished or for debt collectors to harass borrowers in their 80s over student loans that are decades old.

White Plains Mayor Apologizes for Police Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain 

The mayor of White Plains, New York, has finally apologized to the family of a 68-year-old veteran fatally shot by police in his own home. Kenneth Chamberlain, an African-American former marine, was killed after police responded to a false alert from his medical pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. That was on November 19th. On Friday, more than four months later, White Plains Mayor Tom Roach issued a statement offering "condolences" to Chamberlain’s family. The move came one day after Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., publicly criticized Roach and other city officials . . .

Iraqi-American Woman Beaten to Death in U.S. Buried in Iraq

An Iraqi-American woman beaten to death in an apparent hate crime near San Diego has been laid to rest in her native Iraq. Thirty-two-year-old Shaima Alawadi died last week just days after she was brutally attacked in her home. Alawadi was found lying in a pool of blood next to a note saying, "Go back to your country." She was a mother of five children, ranging in age from eight to 17. . . . 

Tyler Perry: 'We are still being racially profiled'

Racial profiling "should be a hate crime investigated by the FBI," filmmaker Tyler Perry wrote in a Facebook posting Sunday in which he described his own tense encounter with police.

"It was so hostile," Perry, who is African-American, wrote. "I was so confused. It was happening so fast that I could easily see how this situation could get out of hand very quickly. I didn't feel safe at all."

Perry, one of America's most successful film and television producers, said "although we have made significant strides with racial profiling in this country, the world needs to know that we are still being racially profiled."

McDonald's worker claims Mega Millions prize

A McDonald's worker who claims to have a winning ticket for the world's biggest lottery prize is insisting she will not share her millions with the colleagues she was in a syndicate with.

Ambulance called for George Zimmerman cancelled, dispatch recordings say

Newly released fire rescue dispatch recordings from the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed reveal that a second ambulance - presumably to tend to George Zimmerman - was canceled before it arrived at the scene of the shooting.
Photos: Trayvon Martin
A Trayvon Martin family spokesperson says the information in those recordings is just another reason why Zimmerman should be arrested, reports CBS affiliate WKMG.
In the recordings, which were first obtained by the New York Daily News and then shared by the newspaper with the station, rescue workers are heard talking about Zimmerman, just minutes after his family said Martin repeatedly bashed his head into a sidewalk.
"Do they have a second patient?" a person says on the recording. "That's affirmative, there's a second patient."
"You can cancel the second rescue" the rescue worker says," adding that the second patient, Zimmerman, didn't have a gunshot wound.

Ambulance called for George Zimmerman cancelled, dispatch recordings say

Newly released fire rescue dispatch recordings from the night 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed reveal that a second ambulance - presumably to tend to George Zimmerman - was canceled before it arrived at the scene of the shooting.

NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactors in South Carolina

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given approval for two nuclear reactors in South Carolina. SCANA Corporation and Santee Cooper have been authorized to build the reactors at the Summer nuclear site in South Carolina’s Fairfield County. The project marks only the second time in the last 30 years that the NRC has approved new reactors. Earlier this year, the NRC also voted to allow . . .

South Jersey Skies: Planets on parade

There is quite a lot going on among the visible planets this week. Four of the five naked-eye planets can be seen tonight. You also have an opportunity to see them in telescopes at Rowan University tomorrow night.

Mets make the call: Santana to start opener

Resort-casino could mean thousands of jobs in South Carolina

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/01/resort-casino-could-mean-thousands-jobs-in-south-carolina/#ixzz1qnqDo2mP

Jobs have always seemed elusive in impoverished Jasper County on South Carolina's southern tip near Savannah, Ga.

Residents have waited decades for a $500 million container port to be built on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River. And a retail complex requiring state incentives could have meant 2,500 jobs but was scuttled by lawmakers.

Now, local officials are pinning their hopes on a proposal for an upscale resort, shopping and entertainment complex that could create upward of 4,000 jobs.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/01/resort-casino-could-mean-thousands-jobs-in-south-carolina/#ixzz1qnqZUbP4

Trayvon Martin case audio: Screams were not George Zimmerman's, 2 experts say

The voice heard crying for help on a 911 call just before Trayvon Martin was shot to death was not that of George Zimmerman, according to two forensic voice identification experts, the Orlando Sentinel reported Saturday.

Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, told the Sentinel that he used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman.

Cissy Houston: ‘I Did The Best I Could’ With Daughter Whitney Houston

In her first interview since daughter Whitney Houston died almost two months ago, Cissy Houston says she did "the best" she could raising her, and she is "very proud" of her.

Legendary runner's body found

Mexico City - Searchers on Saturday found the body of renowned long-distance runner Micah True, who vanished four days earlier after heading out from a lodge for a morning run in the rugged wilderness near New Mexico's Gila National Forest.

The body was discovered in a remote area of the Gila Wilderness, state police spokesperson lieutenant Robert McDonald said.

40 Weird Facts About The United States That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe